Presentation and Drawing

Google Presentation

1. Before experimenting with Google Presentation, my only other real experience creating a presentation was with Microsoft Powerpoint. After creating my own short presentation over my favorite professional athletes, I noticed several similarities between the two programs. At first glance, the setup of Google Presentation is a lot like Powerpoint, with the slides lined up along the left side of the screen, with your option length top. They both offer many of the same options, such as slide transitions. However, the biggest difference to me (and the biggest plus) to Google Presentation is its easy access through Google. When opening Powerpoint from a different computer, one had to previously save the slideshow as a document and email it to oneself. With Google Presentation, all I had to do was sign into my Google account and access my Drive, and it was right there for me to edit. I am really starting to become a fan of Google Doc.'s system of unity throughout Google apps.

2. The biggest thing I picked up from reading chapter 5 on Presentations is how the CCSS has tried to make Google Presentation the standard for slideshows. As stated above, I found many similarities between Google Presentation and Microsoft Powerpoint. The CCSS makes standards that Google Presentation has a easier time meeting than Powerpoint. The book states that the standards, "Students must learn to work together, express and listen carefully to ideas, integrate information from oral, visual, quantitative, and media sources...to help achieve communicative purposes, and adapt speech to context and task," (p. 72) are easily met by Presentation by allowing collaborative work and the easy accessibility through Google to share presentations to peers, teachers, and students. At first, I was a little worried that I would struggle at first with creating a slideshow through Presentation because I was new to it; however, the book made it easy by its step-by-step instructions of how to create and edit a new slideshow.

Link to my slideshow---> https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1-4Sjzs4yX2dhgPBW1xrtk0mIOClnDgG8A12iiLBWwMo/edit#slide=id.g3166a43ba_1_11

Google Drawing

1. I was a little easy going into this part of the assignment because I am, quite frankly, a HORRIBLE artist. I cannot draw or illustrate a decent looking picture if my life depended on it! To a pleasant surprise, Google Drawing made my lack of artistic ability fade away and allowed me to create pictures that you could actually guess what I was making. It took me a little while to understand how to use the shapes into my picture; but once I tackled that obstacle, I was blown away at how simple Drawing made the creation of a picture. I think this app would be VERY beneficial with young students, such as elementary or lower middle school ages because of its simplicity, yet effective way to create organized illustrations.

2. Walking through the middle school lesson plan over the Tangram Square was quite the humbling experience for me. I followed the lesson plan step-by-step which made the process easy. However, when it got the the step of looking at the puzzle, it went waaaaaay over my head. I could see how challenging, yet intriguing an assignment like this could be to a middle school-aged atmosphere. I also liked how in the lesson plan, the instructor partnered Google Drawing with Google Presentation to let the students share their results.

3. Like with the Presentations chapter, the Drawing section made it easy for me to follow along with the foreign Google Drawing app. I like how the chapter started off by stating something Drawings has over Microsoft Office. For me, nearly all of my experience comes from Microsoft office, so as we go along learning new Google apps, I am comparing them to their Microsoft counterparts. With Drawings being an app with a visual product, it is clear by looking at a illustration whether a student understood the directions and followed them accordingly. That is why Drawings easily fits the standard that says "Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it." (p. 129) I also noticed how the book described Drawings as a perfect tool for visually taught subjects like geometry. I know in the past, being able to electronically see geometric shapes would've helped me better comprehend the material. This also passes a standard, being able to draw geometric shapes with corresponding conditions (p. 130).